Chapter 6: Kaari

In the two days I had stayed at Hrofdaal’s place I had learned an awful lot, on the first night I had learned that sleeping in your own room was not the norm, in fact, sleeping in your own bed was not something people did either. Instead you slept in a bed with another person, always. This was likely due to the fact that it is much easier and cheaper to make a bed that fits three people than it was to actually make three beds. I asked, and apparently this was how ins worked as well, except instead of people you tentatively knew, like me and the rest of Hrofdaal’s family to me, they stuck you in beds with strangers.

I also learned that Hrofdaal’s daughter was at a marriageable age, I learned this because Hrofdaal’s wife Ylva mentioned it some twenty or so times right in front of me, Hrofdaal and most embarrassingly of all poor Myvra as well. And no one seemed to think this was odd behavior, despite the fact that I was twenty and she had to be somewhere near fifteen. Now I was well aware that people married earlier in life due to life being shorter in medieval periods, but I confess to still being of the more modern persuasion and unless someone extraordinary came along to change my mind, I still thought of myself as too young to marry. And while she was a nice enough girl, albeit a little shy, she wasn't exactly what I was looking for, had I actually been looking that was. I tended to prefer more bold and snarky women, and her general good-natured mousiness was cute but in the little sister sort of way, not the I want me some of that, sort of way.

This made the situation at the house rather awkward, and resulted in me spending more than a few hours outside doing things around the house. In fact, I fell into the routine of getting up just before the crack of dawn and getting a start on splitting the wood. The axe that Hrofdaal had was not really to my liking, for one thing, the handle was too short, and for another while the blade was thin it was more like a Dane axe than a proper felling axe. I personally preferred the double-bitted felling axes me and my dad used when taking down trees, we kept one side of the axe razor-sharp for the actual felling and the other side a slight bit duller in order to be able to cut things like roots and stumps in the ground where the axe might come into contact with something other than wood. I also had a splitting axe that while being a slight bit thicker so as to split a log had a nice back spike, which worked like the world's best wedge and was really quite effective at splitting apart those hard-to-get logs.

As the sun came up so to did everyone else, and it was often at this point that I went in and ate some breakfast, which consisted normally of cold food leftover from the previous night. From there Hrofdaal and I went out to tend to the Brvost. Apparently, he wasn't just a Brvost stableman or breeder or whatnot, he was the Brvost stableman and breeder, a position that put him rather higher than the average man in town seeing as even the Jarl’s Brvost had come from him, and he was the man the Jarl would go to if it took sick or needed something. Technically speaking all the Brvost were owned by the Jarl and Hrofdaal just raised and trained them, but practically they were Hrofdaal’s and he was allowed to sell them to anyone who had the coin.

That seemed to be the way of things around here, the Jarl allowed you to do things and then you did them, you owned them, but you also did not. I personally didn't really care for that, seeing as there was a risk that someone could just decide one day that everything you owned was his now, but when I started thinking about it, that was not so different from how the U.S. operated. After all, on numerous events the U.S. government had seized land from homeowners for one task or another, often they compensated you, but not always. It was just here the system was so much smaller, and thus felt more personal, though it was kind of interesting to see that people were still people even if the time was different as was the plane of existence.

Tending the Brvost usually came down to making sure they had enough hay to eat, which wasn't much this time of year seeing as there was more than enough grass for them to eat, but also filling up the watering trough. This involved hauling up bucket after bucket of water and walking it over and dumping it in, and it was a rather time-consuming process. Normally by then it was lunch, which often consisted of, you guessed it, leftover food from the night before, though it was usually supplemented with fresh baked bread of one type or another. After which I helped with the breaking of the Brvost that had yet to be trained.

Breaking a Brvost was much like breaking a horse or a mule, not that I had actually ever done that. Jack the mammoth donkey my dad used for labor was tamed well before I even remembered anything seeing as he had been older than me, and had only passed away a year or two before my dad had. Unlike breaking those animals though the Brvost had a whole different issue, not only did you have to be wary of the hooves like all the rest but you also had to be extra vigilant around those horns, they were not for show after all. It really was a treat to watch Hrofdaal work, he was rather adept at getting the rope around the neck of the beast and tying it to the pillar so that it could kick and flail and do whatever it wanted to do to exhaustion. At which point he would hop into the pen with a Viking-style round shield, a much-scarred round shield and approach it. More times than once I worried about him as the tired Brvost charged him, but he always expertly stepped aside and angled the shield so that the force of the horns slid off of the wood and he was pushed back perhaps half a step, or maybe he stepped back, I don’t know it all looked so effortless.

Eventually the Brvost would get so tired that it would lay down, and that was when he went into it. He would slide the shield around to his back on the leather strap that hung around his shoulders diagonally and take up his leather-wrapped truncheon. If it tried to get up he would shove it down bodily, if it tried to bite or gore him he would give it a swift smack with the truncheon, but if it did none of these things he got it used to his touch, he talked to it, combed it and generally got it used to human presence. Some people might think it was cruel to the animal, but it had been trying to kill Hrofdaal, it was like spanking a dog when it did bad, that leather-wrapped truncheon wasn't enough to actually hurt a creature that big, and slapping it yourself wouldn't have done much at all, and it was only done when the creature was attempting to attack, so in my book, it wasn't too bad. After he had worked on the Brvost for the day we went in to wash up and eat dinner, all in all, it was a pretty good schedule and it was rather clear that Hrofdaal knew what he was doing, hell in the two days I had seen him work on the one Brvost I had already noticed the animal being more docile and less aggressive towards him.

The schedule changed on the third day I was in Vessimir, Hrofdaal took the day off of work in order to go up to the Jarl and introduce me, apparently having him vouch for me was like a letter of reference or something, and that made sense seeing as he was the Jarl’s own stablemaster or somesuch. We got dressed and I made sure my clothing looked presentable, I had only had the one outfit, and so the night before Myvra had offered to wash it or me, an act that she offered with the deepest of blushes on her cheeks and her black bangs covering her eyes, and an act that had prompted her mother and father to both laugh out loud. I had taken her up on that offer, despite the fact that it made my cheeks burn slightly. I had borrowed some old clothes of Hrofdaal and despite them being too short they were not too tight on me in the waist or anything, though the shirt didn't work at all seeing as the shoulders were too small and it would have been a crop top for me. My walking around bare-chested had prompted quite a few embarrassing remarks and some ribbing from Ylva directed at poor Myvra at which Hrofdaal would smile good-naturedly and shake his head.

Boots polished and everything packed we went up to the castle, and while I intellectually knew it was a small castle, the fact that men had made this without power tools or heavy machinery still boggled my mind. The guards that stood at the gate were uniform in neither attire nor weaponry, though both sported what looked like a dyed blue gambeson over which other pieces of armor were overlaid. This apparent uniform aspect of them was likely due to it being kit provided with the job, and everything else they wore was likely something they had purchased with their own coin. The guard on the right, a man with a shield on his back much like Hrofdaal had done with his own, bore a spear, it was a long spear, reaching well over his head and the blade itself looked like it might be as long as a man’s forearms. He wore a chain hauberk over his gambeson, it was a vest style and had no sleeves but it did cover his torso and hang down towards his knees. The other man, the one standing on the other side of the gate had a domed helm with a nose guard, and what looked like splint mail shin and arm protection but nothing in the torso region, he also carried a long poled axe that he held in one hand the butt resting against the ground.

Hrofdaal nodded to them and they smiled back, letting the two of us in, though they did look me up and down as we passed. I had a sneaking suspicion that had I not been accompanied by Hrofdaal I would have had a much much harder time getting into the castle. We went through the guardhouse, an area that had two sets of doors and was lacking a roof so that anyone on the battlements overhead that needed to could attack anyone in the airlock style entry, and into the courtyard. It opened up into a rather nice and spacious area that had been smoothed and flattened to provide the most useable area possible. On the far wall to the left next to the main tower was a smaller stable in which several Brvost stood grazing on the troughs of hay or drinking water as a younger man attended to them, he waved at Hrofdaal and Hrofdaal waved back. I turned to survey the rest of the courtyard when a rather intriguing sight caught my eye.

There was a training yard of sorts set up, it looked like a circle where the grass had been worn away, and inside was a person going through what looked like sword drills. As I watched she, and yes it was a she danced around in a rather elegant series of movements, the large two-handed sword in her hand dancing in rhythm with her as she moved. It was rather captivating to watch, she had her long golden hair held back in a ponytail, and unlike all the other women I had seen thus far she was not wearing a dress, rather she wore an off white tunic that had a sort of blue corset or jerkin over it, tight blue legging that did some rather interesting things to her legs and posterior and fingerless leather gloves and knee-high boots on. If I had to gauge her age I would put her in the seventeen or eighteen range, and with a sudden flash of realization, I became aware of my own staring.

“Who is that?” I asked, elbowing Hrofdaal in the side to get his attention. There was just something about the way she moved, the confidence in which she used the blade, and the way the wind tugged at her hair that was rather captivating. Well, my general attraction might have also had something to do with the sunlight gleaming off of her lightly sweaty skin, or perhaps those long tightly clad legs, but I wasn't going to admit that to anyone other than myself.

Hrofdaal looked over and followed my gaze and gave a grunt of appreciation himself. “That would be Kaari,” he looked at me, I could see it out of the corner of my eyes, but I was pretty much giving Kaari my full attention. “She's a looker alright,” he said, and I grunted in agreement, watching as she performed a stab with the blade and moved right into a slash that seemed to flow so naturally from her previous movement. “A little odd, what with the refusal to wear women's clothing, and the blade and whatnot, but still…” He trailed off and I understood him perfectly, well, I didn't think she needed to wear women's clothing, in fact, she looked pretty damn fine in my opinion in what she was wearing, and she clearly was skilled with that sword so more power to her in my book. “But she is also well out of your grasp right now lad, you would have to do quite well for yourself before even attempting what you are thinking, after all, she is the Jarl’s cousin, and well above your station.”

“Hmmm,” I said, making a rather non-committal noise, he snorted and I looked over at him. “What?” I asked. “I was just looking, that's it,”

“Yeah, sure,” he said with a skeptical smile on his lips, “weren't entertaining any ideas were you?”

“Just looking,” I said, feeling my cheeks darken slightly.

“Don't forget I was once a young lad once myself,” he said his words thick with laughter. “Oogling the women can wait, we have a Jarl to go meet, remember?” He asked, and I nodded and allowed him to push me along towards the keep’s interior building, though I will admit to the fact that I looked over my shoulder a number of times as we left…